Abdullah Wazir

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Abdullah Wazir is a citizen of Afghanistan, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in Cuba.^[1] Wazir's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 976. American intelligence analysts estimate that Abdullah Wazir was born in 1979, in Sheikh Amir, Afghanistan.

1 Combatant Status Review Tribunal
2 Bostan Karim's Tribunal
3 References

[edit] Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a small trailer, the same width, but shorter, than a mobile home. The Tribunal's President sat in the big chair. The detainee sat with their hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor in the white, plastic garden chair. A one way mirror behind the Tribunal President allowed observers to observe clandestinely. In theory the open sessions of the Tribunals were open to the press. Three chairs were reserved for them. In practice the Tribunal only intermittently told the press that Tribunals were being held. And when they did they kept the detainee's identities secret. In practice almost all Tribunals went unobserved.

Initially the Bush administration asserted that they could withhold all the protections of the Geneva Conventions to captives from the war on terror. This policy was challenged before the Judicial branch. Critics argued that the USA could not evade its obligation to conduct a competent tribunals to determine whether captives are, or are not, entitled to the protections of prisoner of war status.

Subsequently the Department of Defense instituted the Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The Tribunals, however, were not authorized to determine whether the captives were lawful combatants -- rather they were merely empowered to make a recommendation as to whether the captive had previously been correctly determined to match the Bush administration's definition of an enemy combatant.

Wazir chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.^[2]

[edit] Witness request

After his Tribunal's President tried to explain the Tribunal procedured to Wazir he questioned how, in all fairness, the Tribunal could proceed, when the witness he felt would clear him had not yet responded. A conversation between him and his Personal Representative gave him the impression that he had a choice as to whether to proceed now without his witness, or to continue to wait. So he was very upset that, after choosing to wait, the Tribunal was convened two days later.

Main article: Witnesses requested by Guantanamo detainees

[edit] Allegations

The Thuraya satellite phone is a popular phone in Afghanistan. A lack of telephony infrastructure makes wireless phones popular. The Thuraya is capable of operating as a GSM cell phone, if it can detect a network. Otherwise it operates as a satellite phone.

The allegations Abdullah Wazir faced during his Tribunal were:

a. The Detainee is a member of, or associated with, al Qaida and the Taliban.

The Detainee associates with a known al Qaida cell leader and explosives expert.
The Detainee received AK-47 training.
The Detainee was identified as a member of the Taliban and was seen working in the Kandahar military district office while carrying a handgun.
The Detainee has expressed pro-Taliban views.
The Detainee was apprehended on 13 August 2002 without papers while riding a bus into Pakistan with a known al Qaida cell leader and explosives expert. Additionally, he was apprehended with a satellite cell phone and a large amount of Pakistani and Afghan Rupees.

[edit] Testimony

Wazir denied membership in either al Qaida or the Taliban. He denied associating with an al Qaida cell leader. Wazir denied firing, owning or training on an AK-47 or any other weapons.

In response to the allegation that he worked in the Taliban office in Kandahar Wazir replied:

"Kandahar is very far away from my shop is in Khost, Afghanistan. I was constantly at work around the clock. I could not go down to Kandahar, as it is a one-day travel."

In response to the allegation that he expressed pro-Taliban views Wazir told his Tribunal that he was at odds with the Taliban, and they would be at odds with him, because he regularly engaged in a kind of missionary work they disapproved of.

Wazir responded to the allegation that he tried to cross the border without papers, carrying a large amount of money, and a "satellite cell phone", sitting next to a "known al qaeda cell leader":

Wazir said papers weren't necessary to cross back and forth between Afghanistan and Pakistan's Tribal areas. The same tribes lived on both sides of the border, and they were allowed to cross without papers.
Wazir said he was a successful businessman, and with a primitive banking system he had to carry his funds himself.
Wazir said with Afghanistan's primitive telephony, if an Afghan can afford one, a satellite phone is by far the best option.
Kareem, the guy he sat next to on the bus, was an acquaintance from his missionary work. They hadn't seen one another for five years. And he had no idea whether he had become involved in radical politics since then.

Wazir said he had been warned that if the border guards saw he had a satellite phone, and a lot of money, they would tell him crossing the border with the phone required an exorbitant fee. So, when he was one of the three people picked to be searched, at the border, he tried to surreptiously slip the phone into Karim's pocket.

[edit] Bostan Karim's Tribunal

Bostan Karim acknowledged, during his Tribunal. that he was sitting next to Abdullah Wazir on the bus.^[3] He too told his Tribunal that he and Wazir knew one another from their missionary work, but they hadn't seen one another in years. He said he ended up being captured because the border guard saw Wazir try to slip his satellite phone into his pocket -- something he didn't expect. Karim had requested Wazir as a witness at his Tribunal, but he was told that Wazir was "not reasonably available".